My two years serving the people of the Philippines as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

November 10 Typhoon Week

I love you Mama, thank you for taking the time to send me this email. I am truly grateful for you and all of my family. I am glad that you all are not in Cebu and you are all safe! I am also very grateful that the typhoon didn't hit us that hard. Trees and power lines fell down and we didn't have power but that is about it. Nothing compared to Cebu, they truly got hit hard. My heart goes out to them everyday and I also do hope and pray for all those people. There will be and are many people hurt from what has happened here in the Philippines and being a missionary I have the beautiful opportunity to share the plan of our loving heavenly father with them. I remember Tanner saying on his mission that his testimony for the Plan of Salvation grew so much and I know what he means by that and I feel it too, so much. I know we are all children of God and even though things happen like this I know He is there and I know He has a plan for all of His children, and I can't express how much God loves us. I know that through Jesus Christ, we can feel as if our burdens on our backs are just not there and we can feel peace and love and happiness in our hearts. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is true and I know it is the answer for everything and through everything.I am truly blessed that I have an email here from my family at home. I love and miss you all and I am glad my family is being blessed. We received a new elder here in Bangui and he lives in our apartment, but is not my companion. He has been in the mission as long as I have and he is actually from Cebu and the typhoon hit his home very very hard and he didn't receive and email from his family. He is a convert to the church for just 2 years and he has the strongest testimony and he is very humble and Christlike. He has 9 siblings and he and his parents are the only ones that are members and his parents just got sealed in the temple and he has a beautiful family and he didn't receive an email from them today because the typhoon that hit his home. He doesn't know if his family is safe and he has not heard any news.One thing that I have really learned on the mission is that my life is good and I am so blessed. Nothing like this has happened to me of my family and the people here in the Philippines are so humble and so kind and they have nothing save it be their families, so I truly know that when it comes down to family here in this part of the world, there is a lot of love and a lot of support here with families. Elder E is handling this really well and he has such a big desire to serve the Lord and he is a huge example to me truly.I am glad you had a good week there at home. I am way proud of Cooper, he truly has been a leader this year and I am proud of him. I am joyful that my little brother is excited to serve a mission, I know that means a lot to Heavenly Father. Coop, Tanner told me this when I was preparing to go a my mission, "You have greater happiness and greater blessings waiting for you in the mission field" those words really stuck with me and he is 100% right, and now I say that to you , that you have greater happiness and greater blessings waiting for you here in the mission field. I am super happy and I love being a missionary!Mama thank you for the package, I am really grateful for that truly. I am really excited to see what is inside. MAMA, you have been working with the sister missionaries and that means you have been helping build up the kingdom of God! Mama, you are awesome, and I love you! It is not easy to make plans with the missionaries and go work but I know that it is worth it. I know you felt Christ like love for those investigators and I know you wanted to help them become closer to their Savior. MAMA, those feelings that you felt in those lessons I get to feel and experience that everyday and I love it! You are doing your part as a member of Gods church and I know He is happy with you.I really miss my pops, Dad I sure do love you and I know Tanner can say this same thing...I am grateful to have had a dad like you growing up. I know how to work hard and I know the importance of just being a good person and I know that I have been taught some great attributes just for life in general. Dad, thank you for your example to me and I am the missionary that I am because of these examples in my life.So for my week, it was really great, I don't have much time but I just want to say the week was pretty great. We really focused on our baptismal dates and they all went to church so hopefully we have 7 baptisms coming here in Bangui. The work here in Bangui is really progressing and the elders that I am with are truly just great and they work really hard. The spirit is really strong in our apartment and it has been a great week. Elder D in our companionship inventory this last week started crying because he is sad that this is our last transfer together and he said he wants to be my companion for the whole mission. Elder D is the man and a great companion! I said to him, "we still have 6 weeks together, how about we get some baptisms together and just enjoy these next 6 weeks like crazy. We are really close and great friends and it has been great being his companion!Other than that, life is great and I wish I had time to tell you a story but it is all good. I love you all and I am grateful for you all and I hope you have a great week!Happiness comes from God!Happy Days, All is WellElder Clark:)